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THE CRANE CLASSICS 



LOWELL'S 

VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL, 

AND OTHEE POEMS. 



WITH BIOGRAPHY AND NOTES 



BY 



MAEGAEET HILL McOAETEE, 

Formerly Teacher of English and American Litera- 
ture, Topeka High School. 



CRANE & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

TOPEKA, KANSAS 

1904 



I OCT 24 1904 • 



CopyHght 1904, 

By Crane & Company, 

Topeka, Kansas. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE . 

BlOGTRAPHY OF JaMES KuSSELL LoWELL 5 

The Vision of Sir Launfal 18 

Harvard Commemoration Ode 27 

The First Snow-Fall 44 

Villa Franca 46 

The Nightingale in the Study 50 

The Present Crisis 53 

The Biglow Papers 60 

Prometheus 67 



BIOGRAPHY OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

I. 

"Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, 
Nor the march of the encroaching city, 

Drives an exile 
From the hearth of his ancestral homestead." 

Elmwood, the lifelong home of James Russell Lowell, 
is a square, old-fashioned house in the city, once the vil- 
lage, of Cambridge, where historic homes grow every year 
more sacred to the American people. The house, as the 
name suggests, is surrounded by fine old elm trees, and 
set about by lilacs and syringa bushes. In the ante- 
Eevolutionary days it was owned by Tory adherents, but 
after the war for independence it became the property 
of the Lowell family. Here, on February 22, 1819, 
James Russell Lowell w^as born. And here, on August 
12, 1891, he died, having never in all his life called any 
other house his home. The Lowell family came originally 
from Bristol, England, and settled in Newbury, Massa- 
chusetts, in 1639. The poet's ancestors were mostly 
professional men, noted for rendering much public service. 
His great-grandfather was a minister at N^ewburyport. 
His grandfather, John Lowell, was a member of the Mas- 
sachusetts Constitutional Convention in 1780. It was 
from his uncle, Francis Cabot Lowell, that the city of 
Lowell takes its name. Another uncle is responsible 

(5) 



6 THE CEANE CLASSICS. ' ^ 

for establishing the famous Lowell Institute, of Boston. 
James Kussell's father was a minister. His mother, 
whose maiden name was Harriet Spence, was of Scotch 
descent, and it was from her that her son received his 
poetic heritage. There were four other children in the 
family — two sons and two daughters — all older than 
himself. 

In 1844 Lowell was married to Maria White, a woman 
of poetic temperament, whose influence over his life was 
most helpful. Added to her fine literary sense was her 
still finer moral sense of justice and high notion of purity 
and right. Something of Maria Wliite-Lowell speaks in 
The Present Crisis, The Commemoration Ode, and Villa 
Franca. She died in 1853. On the night of her death 
one of Longfellow's children was born. It was of this 
occasion that Longfellow wrote his beautiful poem em 
titled The Two Angels. There were three children born 
to the poet and his wife. Blanche died in infancy, Walter 
in childhood, while a third, Mrs. Burnett, outlived both 
parents. 

In 1857 Lowell married Miss Trancis Dunlap, of Port- 
land, Maine. Her death occurred in 1885. For six 
years longer the poet lived a quiet, somewhat lonely life 
in his beloved Elmwood. 

He passed away at the age of seventy-two, leaving be- 
hind such a record of nobility and usefulness that he has 
more than once been called America's greatest man of 
letters. 



BIOGEAPHY OF JAMES EUSSELL LOWELL. 7 

11. 

Lowell lived always among books. His first years 
were spent in a private school. Later he took up classical 
studies under William Wells, an English teacher of great 
thoroughness. He graduated from Harvard College in 
1838, and two years later received his degree from the 
Harvard Law School. 

Although he made some effort to follow the law and 
other pursuits, his inclination was always toward litera- 
ture. And he soon returned to it after every departure. 
So we may say of him, that his life-work, excepting his 
years of public service, lay along literary lines. 

In the year 1854 he delivered a course of lectures be- 
fore the Lowell Institute. The following year he was 
elected to succeed Longfellow, to the chair of Modern 
Languages and Literature at Harvard College. He spent 
two years abroad fitting himself for this work. From 
1857 to 1861 Lowell was the editor of the Atlantic 
Monthly. Later, with Charles Eliot Norton, he edited 
the N orth- American Review for ten years. Again, in 
1886, he lectured before the Lowell Institute. 

His usefulness, however, was not limited to his teach- 
ing power and his pen. Through these years here noted 
he had made a study of history and politics. And when 
in 1877 he was appointed United States minister to 
Spain, he was amply able to fill the place offered to him. 
In 1880 he was sent as minister to the Court of St. James. 
'No American minister was ever more acceptable to the 
English government, or was more honored by it. 

Lowell's public service ranks him as a statesman of 



8 THE CKAI^E CLASSICS. 

high order. He was not in the narrow sense a partisan, 
but looked upon all public issues broadly as affecting the 
people, not the political party. Some of his best literary 
work is in his critical essays and addresses. It was in- 
evitable that the fearless expression of his views should 
create a storm of bitter criticism from party leaders, who 
set office-holding above principle; but the perspective of 
history has justified Lowell and given him fame and 
honor. 

III. 

However, it is not Lowell the teacher, editor and states- 
man who most interests the student of classics, but LoAvell 
the poet, dear to every mind who studies well the product 
of his pen. 

He was a many-sided writer, an ^' all-round " man. 
Note the titles given to him : ^^ The Songster of Elm- 
wood," ^' The Author of the American Hudibras," " Our 
Ablest Critic," " Our N'ew Theocritus." 

Like all poets, he drew subjects from l^ature, whom he 
studied and loved. E^otable among this class of his poems 
are An Indian Summer Reverie, The Oaks, Beaver Brooh, 
and Under the Willows. Also in his papers. My Garden 
Acquaintances and A Good Word for Winter, one sees how 
Lowell saw the outdoor world. In all American litera- 
ture no poetry inspired by the sea is finer than Lowell's 
Pictures from Appledore. It is praise-compelling, lead- 
ing the reader by the grip of its power. 

" Trust me, 'tis something to be cast 
Face to face with one's self at last, 
To be taken out of the fuss and strife. 
The endless clatter of plate and knife, 



BIOGRAPHY OF JAMES EUSSELL LOWELL. 9 

The bore of books and the bores of the street, 
From the singular mess we agree to call Life, 
Where that is best which most fools vote is. 
And to be set down on one's own two feet 
So nigh to the great warm heart of God, 
You almost seem to feel it beat 
Down from the sunshine and up from the sod." 

So Lowell speaks when lie transforms his Apple do re 
from a common island into the wonderful thing his Pic- 
tures reveal. 

Had the poet written nothing more than The Vision of 
Sir Launfal, he would have taken first rank with his kind. 
Since a study of it follows in this volume, it is not neces- 
sary to consider it here. 

The Biglow Papers, for their day and purpose, stand 
unrivaled. The poet in them undertook to strike a 
blow at human slavery and the extension of the territory 
wherein it could exist. E^o forces are more powerful than 
satire and sarcasm. While they are of necessity short- 
lived, they are inversely proportional in their strength. In 
these papers the quaint Yankee dialect appealed at once 
to the common mind, while the richness of the humor 
fascinated it. With the close of the Civil War their pur- 
pose ceased to be, but by the merit of aptness their lines 
became household phrases, and so they grew into the liv- 
ing language from which they will never be uprooted. 

But it must be conceded that the crowning glory of 
Lowell's literary ability lay not in his graceful poetry on 
I^ature, nor the beautiful imagery of his legends, but in 
the strength and sublimity of his poems on Freedom. 
Here the reach of his mentality, his nobleness of charac- 
ter and clear insight and sense of justice^ had full play. 



10 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

So long as American literature endures, so long will The 
Present Crisis and the Harvard Commemoration Ode be 
studied with delight. And the inspiration to patriotism 
and heroism and unselfish right-living that they teach will 
still be a light to lead the future generations. 

IV. 

James Kussell Lowell's life was cast in fortunate lines. 
Born of good parentage, surrounded Avith comforts, bred 
in an atmosphere of books, with literary associations on 
every hand, one more thing was in his favor. His time 
of life befell when history was at a fever heat of interest 
and inspiration. Wars sow the seeds for classic litera- 
ture. AVars do not merely happen: they are the tre- 
mendous expression of clashing principles. E^ot alone do 
they spring from a wrestling of right with wrong — they 
are the struggle of the principles of a Lesser Good against 
a Greater Good. The poet who lives in the heart of 
warring times and places can put a soul into his poetry 
that no peaceful annals of history can inspire. In such 
a time Lowell lived, and helped to make life great. His 
laurels are of the unfading hue. As a writer he had 
grace of expression and beauty of imaginative conception. 
With these powers he lay his best gifts at the feet of 
Truth, and she crovnied him with beauty and grace im- 
mortal. 

And let it not be forgotten that the common man, 
Lowell, the teacher, the man of business, the statesman 
among statesmen, the friend and husband and father, was 
also noble, modest, capable, affectionate, brave, and true. 



BIOGRAPHY OF JAMES KUSSELL LOWELL. 11 

Such an American needs no coat of arms nor blazon of 
heraldry, but for all generations he will stand as he stood 
in his own generation, — 

"A king, ay, every inch a king." 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 

According to the best authority, The Vision of Sir 
Launfal was composed under the spell of a poetic transport 
in forty-eight hours. It is one of the finest productions 
in American literature. The following note was prefixed 
to the first edition by the author, and was retained by him 
in all subsequent editions: 

"According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, 
or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus Christ partook of the 
last supper with his disciples. It was brought into England by 
Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage 
and adoration for many years, in the keeping of his lineal descend- 
ants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it to be 
chaste in thought, word and deed; but one of the keepers having, 
broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time 
it was a favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go 
in search of it. Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding it, 
as may be read in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King 
Arthur. Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the 
most exquisite of his poems." 

The purpose of the poem is to teach modern Christianity 
through one of the old legends of King Arthur. It is 
symmetrical in its proportions, the two parts being intro- 
duced by preludes. In each of these preludes the poet, 
like the organist, gives the keynote to his composition. 
The first is full of. the upbubbling life and joy of the 
June time. There is in it the suggestion of morning and 



12 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

sunshine, and youth and hope and high ambition, all of 
which the first part holds. 

The second prelude, in direct contrast with the first, 
carries all the chill of December in its tone. The dreary 
frost of old age and dead ambition is in its suggestion. 
Hope has given place to Endurance, and Pride and Selfish- 
ness are overcome by Humility and Love. 

The literary style is exquisite. The poem abounds in 
beautiful figures of rhetoric that are as finely contrasted 
as the thought of the parts themselves, and the student 
finds a series of word-pictures that holds a world-wide 
lesson in its application. 



In the study of this poem the following suggestions may 
be useful: 

1. To know the meaning of each word. 

2. To study the figures of rhetoric, especially the meta- 
phors and similes in which it excels. 

3. To contrast the figures in the first part and prelude 
with the corresponding figures in the last part and pre- 
lude. 

4. To commit to memory the finest passages. 
Suggestions 1, 2, and 4 apply equally to all the poems 

in this book. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 

PRELUDE TO PART FI^ST. 

Over his keys the musing organist, 

Beginning doubtfully and far aAvay, 
First lets his fingers wander as they list, 

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay : 
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, 
First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent 

Along the wavering vista of his dream. 

'Not only around our infancy 
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie ; 
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot. 
We Sinais climb and know it not. 

Over our manhood bend the skies ; 

Against our fallen and traitor lives 
The great winds utter prophecies : 

With our faint hearts the mountain strives; 
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood 

Waits with its benedicite; 
And to our age's drowsy blood 

Still shouts the inspiring sea. 

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us; 
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, 

(13) 



10 



15 



20 



14 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

The priest hatli his fee who comes and shrives us, 
We bargain for the graves we lie in; 

At the Devil's booth are all things sold, 
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold ; 

For a cap and bells our lives we pay, 
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking: 

'T is heaven alone that is given away, 
'Tis only God may be had for the asking; 
'No price is set on the lavish summer; 
June may be had by the poorest comer. 

And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days; 
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 

And over it softly her warm ear lays: 
Whether we look, or whether we listen. 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instant within it that reaches and towers. 
And, groping blindly above it for light, 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; 
The flush of life may well be seen 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green. 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice. 
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 

To be some happy creature's palace; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
And lets his illumined being o'er run 

With the deluge of summer it receives; 



25 



30 



35 



40 



45 



50 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUIS'FAL. 15 



His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 
In the nice ear of ITature which song is the best ? 



55 



65 



'Now is the high-tide of the year, 

And whatever of life hath ebbed away 
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer. 

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; ^^ 

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it. 
We are happy now because God wills it ; 
'No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green; 
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; 
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing; 
The breeze comes whispering in our ear. 
That dandelions are blossoming near. 

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing. 
That the river is bluer than the sky. 
That the robin is plastering his house hard by; 
And if the breeze kept the good news back, 
For other couriers we should not lack; '^^ 

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, — 
And hark ! how clear bold Chanticleer, 
Warmed with the new wine of the year. 

Tells all in his lusty crowing ! 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; ^^ 

Everything is happy now. 

Everything is upward striving ; 



70 



90 



16 THE CRAN-E CLASSICS. 

'T is as easy now for the lieart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue^ — 

'T is the natural way of living: 
Who knows wliitlier the clouds have fled? 

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; 
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, 

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; 
The ^ul partakes of the season's youth, 

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, 

Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. 
What w^onder if Sir Launfal now 
Remembered the keeping of his vow ? ^^ 



PART FIRST. 
I. 
My golden spurs now bring to me, 



a 



And bring to me my richest mail, 
For to-morrow I go .over land and sea 

In search of the Holy Grail; 
Shall never a bed for me be spread, ^^^ 

l^ov shall a pillow be under my head, 
Till I begin my vow to keep; 
Here on the rushes will I sleep. 
And perchance there may come a vision true 
Ere day create the world anew." ^^^ 

Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim, 

Slumber fell like a cloud on him. 
And into his soul the vision flew. 



THE visioisr of sir lauitfal. 

II. 
The crows flapped over by twos and threes, 
In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, 

The little birds sang as if it were 

The one day of summer in all the year, 
And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees : 
The castle alone in the landscape lay 
Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray: 
'Twas the proudest hall in the North Countree, 
iVnd never its gates might opened be. 
Save to lord or lady of high degree; 
Summer besieged it on every side, 
But the churlish stone her assaults defied; 
She could not scale the chilly wall. 
Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall 
Stretched left and right. 
Over the hills and out of sight; 

Green and broad was every tent. 

And out of each a murmur went 
Till the breeze fell off at night. 

III. 

The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, 
And through the dark arch a charger sprang. 
Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight. 
In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 
It seemed the dark castle had gathered all 
Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall 

In his siege of three hundred summers long, 
And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, 

Had cast them forth: so, young and strong, 
~2 



17 



't>7 



110 



115 



120 



125 



130 



135 



140 



145 



18 THE CEAI^E CLASSICS. 

And lightsome as a locust-leaf, 

Sir Laiinfal flashed forth in his nnscarred mail, 

To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. 

IV. 

It was morning on hill and stream and tree. 
And morning in the young knight's heart; 

Only the castle moodily 

Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, 
And gloomed by itself apart; 

The season brimmed all other things up 

Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. 

V. 

As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate. 

He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same. 
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate ; 

And a loathing over Sir Launfal came; ^^^ 

The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, 

The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl. 
And midway its leap his heart stood still 

Like a frozen waterfall; 
For this man, so foul and bent of stature, ^^^ 

Rasped harshly against his dainty nature. 
And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, — 
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. 

VI. 

The leper raised not the gold from the dust: 

" Better to me the poor man's crust, ^^^ 

Better the blessing of the poor. 

Though I turn me empty from his door ; 



THE VISION OF SIK LAUlTFAIi. 19 



Tliat is no true alms wliicli tlie hand can hold; 
He gives nothing but worthless gold 

Who gives from a sense of duty; 
But he who gives but a slender mite. 
And gives to that which is out of sight, 



165 



That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
"Which runs through all and doth all unite, — 
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, 
The heart outstretches its eager palms, 
For a god goes with it and makes it store 
To the soul that was starving in darkness before." 

PRELUDE TO PART SECOND. 

DowiT swept the chill wind from the mountain peak. 
From the snow five thousand summers old; 

On open wold and hill-top bleak 
It had gathered all the cold. 

And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek ; 

It carried a shiver everywhere 

From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; 

The little brook heard it and built a roof 

'^eath which he could house him, winter-proof; 

All night by the white stars' frosty gleams 

He groined his arches and matched his beams; 

Slender and clear were his crystal spars 

As the lashes of light that trim the stars; 

He sculptured every summer delight 

In his halls and chambers out of sight; 

Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 

Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 



170 



175 



180 



185 



190 



20 THE CRAWE CLASSICS. 

Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees 

Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; 

Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 

But silvery mosses that downward grew ; 

Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief ^^^ 

With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; 

Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear 

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here 

He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 

And hung them thickly with diamond-drops, ^oo 

That crystalled the beams of moon and sun. 

And made a star of every one: 

'No mortal builder's most rare device 

Could match this winter-palace of ice; 

'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay ^^' 

In his depths serene through the summer day. 

Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, 

Lest the happy model should be lost, 
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 

By the elfin builders of the frost. 210 

Within the hall are song and laughter, 

The cheeks of Christmas grow red and jolly. 
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 

With lightsome green of ivy and holly; 
Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 215 

Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; 
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 

And belly and tug as a flag in the wind ; 
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap. 

Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; 220 



225 



THE VISION" OF SIR LAUNFAL. 21 



And swift little troops of silent sparks, 

Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, 
Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks 

Like herds of startled deer. 
But the wind without was eager and sharp. 
Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, 
And rattles and wrings 
The icy strings. 
Singing, in dreary monotone, 
A Christmas carol of its o^\m. 
Whose burden still, as he might guess. 
Was — ^^ Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless ! '' 
The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch 
As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch. 
And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 
The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, 
Through the window-slits of the castle old, 
Build out its piers of ruddy light 
Again the drift of the cold. 



PART SECOND. 
I. 

There was never a leaf on bush or tree. 
The bare boughs rattled shudder ingly ; 
The river was dumb and could not speak. 

For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun, 
A single crow on the tree-top bleak 

From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun ; 
Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold. 
As if her veins were sapless and old, 
And she rose up decrepitly 
For a last dim look at earth and sea. 



230 



23! 



240 



245 



22 



THE CRATsTE CLASSICS. 



II. 

Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, ^^^ 

For another heir in his earldom sate; 

An old, bent man, worn out and frail. 

He came back from seeking the Holy Grail; 

Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 

'No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, ^^^ 

But deep in his soul the sign he wore. 

The badge of the suffering and the poor. 

III. 

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare 

Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air. 

For it was just at the Christmas time ; ^^^ 

So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime. 

And sought for a shelter from cold and snow 

In the light and warmth of long-ago; 

He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 

O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, " ^es 

Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, 

He can count the camels in the sun, 

As over the red-hot sands they pass 

To where, in its slender necklace of grass. 

The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, ^^^ 

And with its own self like an infant played, 

And waved its signal of palms. 

IV. 

" For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms ; " — 

The happy camels may reach the spring. 

But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing, 275 



THE VISION" OF SIR LAUI^TFAL. 23 

The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, 
That cowers beside him, a thing as lone 
And white as the ice-isles of IsTorthern seas 
In the desolate horror of his disease. 



V. 



280 



And Sir Laiinfal said, — "I behold in thee 

An image of Him who died on the tree; 

Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — 

Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns, — 

And to thy life were not denied 

The wounds in the hands and feet and side : ^^^ 

Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me ; 

Behold, through him, I give to Thee ! " 

VI, 

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes 

And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he 
Remembered in what a haughtier guise ^^^ 

He had flung an alms to leprosie. 
When he girt his young life up in gilded mail 
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. 
The heart within him was ashes and dust; 
He parted in twain his single crust, ^^^ 

He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, 
And gave the leper to eat and drink: 
'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 

'T was water out of a wooden bowl, — 
Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, ^^^ 

And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. 



24 



THE CRANE CLASSICS. 



VII. 



As Sir Laimfal mused with a downcast face, 

A light shone round about the place ; 

The leper no longer crouched at his side, 

But stood before him glorified, ^^^ 

Shining and tall and fair and straight 

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, — 

Himself the Gate whereby men can 

Enter the temple of God and Man. 



VIII. 



His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, 

And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine. 

That mingle their softness and quiet in one 

With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; 

And the voice that was calmer than silence said, 

^^Lo it is I, be not afraid! ^^^ 

In many climes, without avail, 

Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; 

Behold, it is here, — this cup which thou 

Didst fill at the streamlet for Me but now; 

This crust is My body broken for thee, ' ^^^ 

This water His blood that died on the tree; 

The Holy Supper is kept, indeed. 

In whatso we share with another's need : 

!N^ot what we give, but what we share, — 

For the gift without the giver is bare ; ^^^ 

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, — 

Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me/' 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 25 



IX. 

Sir Launf al awoke as from a swoimd : — 
^^ The Grail in my castle here is found ! 
Hang my idle armor np on the wall, 
Let it be the spider's banquet-hall; 
He must be fenced with stronger mail 
Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." 



330 



NOTES. 

What is a prelude? What is the purpose of this prelude? 
Define : 

7. Auroral. 

8. Vista. 

9-10. See Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality, line 67: 
" Heaven lies about us in our infancy." 
12. Sinais. 

17. Druids. 
25. Shrines. 

18. Benedicite (Latin) ; literally, Be thou blessed. A blessing. 
27. The cap hung round with bells was the head-gear of the court 

jester of the Middle Ages when the dress marked the rank to which 
each person belonged. See Shakespeare's King Lear, The Merchant 
of Venice, and Scott's Ivanhoe. 

42. Explain line. 

52. Explain " deluge of summer." 

77. Define " Chanticleer." 

91-93. Note the fine simile. 

97. "Mail." Explain. 

Define : 

100. " Shall never a bed." 

103. "Rushes." 

116. North Countree — the former spelling in rhyme. 

120. Explain " churlish stones." 

Define : 

122. Pavilions. 

128. Drawbridge. 

130. Maiden knight. One whose honors were yet to be won, , 



26 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

Define : 

146. Pitcher-plant. 

147. Explain the rhetorical figure. 
164. What is "worthless gold"? 

160-173. Commit to memory. Contrast two preludes, carefully. 

181-210. Commit to memory. 

Define: 

176. Wold. 

184. Groined. 

196. Arabesque. 

204. Catherine II., Empress of Russia, had an ice palace built to 
gratify her royal whim. It lasted only a short time. 

Note the contrast between the picture in 211-224 and the one in 
225-231. 

213. Define " corbel." 

216. The Yule-log was the huge log of wood burned by the Scandi- 
navians at the feast of Jule (Yule). The time of this feast cor- 
responded with our Christmas, and when the Scandinavians became 
Christians they celebrated the Christmastide as they had their 
Yule-tide. So long as the Yule-log lasted there was holiday and 
feasting in the castle. 

217. Explain " flame-pennons." 
221-224. Note the beautiful figure. 
233. Define seneschal. 

Contrast 244 with 109. 

Contrast 246-249 with 140-146. 

250. "Hard gate." Explain. 

255. Define " surcoat." 

259. "Idle mail." Explain. 

278-279. Note the powerful simile. 

294-327. Commit to memory. 

307. What was the " Beautiful Gate " ? 

315-327. Point out the two noblest lines. 

What is the finest simile in the poem? The finest metaphor? 
What is the purpose of the poem? 

How long a time did the author spend in composing it? 
If you were a painter, what group of lines suggests the finest 
picture to put on canvas? 



ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMO- 
RATION 

[The following poem was read by Mr. Lowell on July 21, 1865, at 
Harvard University. The occasion was the commemoration of the 
services of the living and the dead Harvard students and graduates 
who had fought for the Union in the Civil War.] 

I. 

Weak-wi]^ged is song, 
'Nov aims at that clear-ethered height 
Whither the brave deed climbs for light: 

We seem to do them wrong, 
Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse ^ 

Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse, 
Our trivial song to honor those who come 
With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum, 
And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire. 
Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire: ^^ 

Yet sometimes feathered words are strong, 
A gracious memory to buoy up and save 
From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave 

Of the unventurous throng. 



II. 

To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back 
Her wisest Scholars, those who understood 
The deeper teaching of her mystic tome. 

And offered their fresh lives to make it good: 
ISTo lore of Greece or Rome, 
No science peddling with the names of things, 

(27) 



15 



20 



28 



THE CEAISTE CLASSICS. 



Or reading stars to find inglorious fates, 

Can lift our life with wings 
Tar from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits, 

And lengthen out our dates 
With that clear fame whose memory sings 25 

In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates : 
'Nor such thy teaching. Mother of us all ! 

ISTot such the trumpet-call 

Of thy diviner mood, 

That could thy sons entice so 

From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest 
Of those half-virtues which the world calls best. 

Into War's tumult rude; 

But rather far that stern device 
The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood ^5 

In the dim, unventured wood. 

The Veritas that lurks beneath 

The letter's unprolific sheath. 
Life of whate'er makes life worth living, 
Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food, ^^ ^o 

One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving. 



III. 



Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil 

Amid the dust of books to find her. 
Content at last, for guerdon of their toil. 

With the cast mantle she hath left behind her. ^5 

Many in sad faith sought for her, 
Many with crossed hands sighed for her; 
But these, our brothers, fought for her. 
At life's dear peril wrought for her, 



HARVARD COMMEMORATION ODE. 29 

So loved her that they died for her, ^^ 

Tasting the raptured fleetness 
Of her divine completeness ; 
Their higher instinct knew 
Those love her best who to themselves are true, 
And what they dare to dream of, dare to do; ^^ 

They followed her and found her 
Where all may hope to find, 
^ot in the ashes of the burnt-out mind. 
But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her. 

Where faith made whole with deed. ^^ 

Breathes its awakening breath 
Into the lifeless creed, 
They saw her plumed and mailed. 
With sweet, stern face unveiled. 
And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death. ^^ 

IV. 

Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides 
Into the silent hollow of the past ; 

What is there that abides 
To make the next age better for the last ? 

Is earth too poor to give us "^^ 

Something to live for here that shall outlive us ? 

Some more substantial boon 
Than such as flows and ebbs with Fortune's fickle moon ? 

The little that we see 

From doubt is never free; '^" 

The little that we do 

Is but half -nobly true; 

With our laborious hiving 



30 THE CEAiq^E CLASSICS. 

What men call treasure, and tlie gods call dross, 

Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving, ^^ 

Only secure in every one's conniving, 
A long account of nothings paid with loss. 
Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires. 

After our little hour of strut and rave. 
With all our pasteboard passions and desires, ^^ 

Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires. 

Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. 

But stay ! no age was e'er degenerate, 

LTnless men held it at too cheap a rate. 

For in our likeness still we shape our fate. ^^ 

Ah, there is something here 

TJnfathomed by the cynic's sneer, 

Something that gives our feeble light 

A high immunity from Night, 

Something that leaps life's narrow bars ^^ 

To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven ; 

A seed of sunshine that doth leaven 

Our earthly dullness with the beams of stars, 
And glorify our clay 
With light from fountains elder than the Day ; ^^^ 

A conscience more divine than we, 

A gladness fed with secret tears, 

A vexing, forward-reaching sense 

Of some more noble permanence; 

A light across the sea, ^^^ 

Which haunts the soul and will not let it be. 
Still glimmering from the heights of undegenerate years. 



HARVARD COMMEMORATIOIT ODE. 31 



V. 

Whitlier leads the path 

To ampler fates that leads ? 

ISTot down through flowery meads, ^^^ 

To reap an aftermath 

Of youth's vainglorious weeds ; 

But up the steep J amid the wrath 
And shock of deadly-hostile creeds, 
Where the world's best hope and stay ^^^ 

By battle's flashes groups a desperate way, 
And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. 

Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, 

Ere yet the sharp, decisive word 
Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword 

Dreams in its easeful sheath ; 
But some day the live coal behind the thought, 

Whether from Baal's stone obscene. 

Or from the shrine serene 

Of God's pure altar brought. 
Bursts up in flame ; the war of tongue and pen 
Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught, 
And, helpless in the fiery passion caught. 
Shakes all the pillared state with shock of men : 
Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed 
Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued. 
And cries reproachful : '" Was it, then, my praise. 
And not myself was loved ? Prove now thy truth ; 
I claim of thee the promise of thy youth ; 
Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase. 



120 



125 



130 



135 



32 THE CRAN'E CLASSICS. 

The victim of thy genius, not its mate ! " 
Life may be given in many ways, 
And loyalty to Truth be sealed 
As bravely in the closet as the field, 

So bountiful is Fate ; ^^^ 

But then to stand beside her, 
When craven churls deride her. 
To front a lie in arms and not to yield, 
This shows, methinks, God's plan 
And measure of a stalwart man, ^^^ 

Limbed like the old heroic breeds, 
Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth, 
'Not forced to frame excuses for his birth. 
Fed from within with all the strength he needs. 



VI. 



Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 

Whom late the E'ation he had led, 
With ashes on her head. 
Wept with the passion of an angry grief : 
Forgive me, if from present things I turn 
To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, 
And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. 

Nature, they say, doth dote, 

And cannot make a man 

Save on some worn-out plan. 

Repeating us by rote: 
For him her Old- World moulds aside she threw. 
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 

Of the unexhausted West, 
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new. 



150 



155 



160 



HARVARD COMMEMORATION ODE. 33 

Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. ^^^ 

How beautiful to see 
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, 
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; 
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, 

'Not lured by any cheat of birth, ^'^^ 

But by his clear-grained human worth. 
And brave old wisdom of sincerity ! 
They knew that outward grace is dust ; 
They could not choose but trust 
In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, /^° 

And supple-tempered will 
That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. 
His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind. 
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, 
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind; ^^^ 

Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, 
Fruitful and friendly for all human-kind. 
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. 

E^othing of Europe here, 
Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still, ^^^ 

Ere any names of Serf and Peer 
Could ITature's equal scheme deface 

And thwart her genial will; 
Here was a type of the true elder race. 
And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. ^^^ 

I praise him not ; it were too late ; 
And some innative weakness there must be 
In him who condescends to victory 
Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, 

—3 



200' 



205 



34 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

Safe in himself as in a fate. ^®' 

So always firmly he: 
He knew to bide his time, 
And can his fame abide, 
Still patient in his simple faith sublime, 
Till the wise years decide. 
Great captains, with their guns and drums, 
Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
But at last silence comes; 
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower. 
Our children shall behold his fame. 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 
ISTew birth of our new soil, the first American. 

VII. 

Long as man's hope insatiate can discern 
Or only guess some more inspiring goal 
Outside of Self, enduring as the pole. 

Along whose course the flying axles burn 

Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth's manlier brood; 
Long as below we cannot find 

The meed that stills the inexorable mind; ^^^ 

So long this faith to some ideal Good, 

Under whatever mortal name it masks, 

Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood 
That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks, 

Feeling its challenged pulses leap, ^^^ 

"While others skulk in subterfuges cheap. 
And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon its asks. 

Shall win man's praise and woman's love. 

Shall be a wisdom that we set above 



210 



230 



235 



HARVARD COMMEMORATION" ODE. 35 

All other skills and gifts to culture dear, ^^^ 

A virtue round whose forehead we enwreathe 
Laurels that with a living passion breathe 

When other crowns grow, while we twine them, sear. 
Wliat brings us thronging these high rites to pay, 

And seal these hours the noblest of our year, 
Save that our brothers found this better way ? 

VIII. 

We sit here in the Promised Land 
That flows with Freedom's honey and milk ; 

But 't was they won it, sword in hand. 
Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk. 
We welcome back our bravest and our best ; — 
Ah me ! not all ! some come not with the rest, 
Who went forth brave and bright as any here ! 
I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, 
But the sad strings complain, 
And will not please the ear : 
I sweep them for a psean, but they wane 

Again and yet again 
Into a dirge, and die away in pain. 
In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, 
Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps. 
Dark to the triumph which they died to gain: 
Fitlier may others greet the living, 
For me the past is unforgiving; 

I with uncovered head ^^^ 

Salute the sacred dead, 
Who went, and who return not. — Say not so ! 
^T is not the grapes of Canaan that repay. 
But the high faith that failed not by the way; 



240 



245 



36 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 



IX. 



255 



Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; 
'No bar of endless night exiles the brave; 

And to the saner mind 
We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. 
Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! 
For never shall their aureoled presence lack: ^^^ 

I see them muster in a gleaming row, 
With ever-youthful brows that nobler show ; 
We find in our dull road their shining track; 

In every nobler mood 
We feel the orient of their spirit glow, ^^^ 

Part of our life's unalterable good. 
Of all our saintlier aspiration; 

They come transfigured back. 
Secure from change in their high-hearted ways. 
Beautiful evermore, and with the rays ^^^ 

Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation! 



But is there hope to save 
Even this ethereal essence from the grave? 
What ever 'scaped Oblivion's subtle wrong 

Save a few clarion names, or golden threads of song ? ^^^ 
Before my musing eye 

, The mighty ones of old sweep by, 

Disvoiced now and insubstantial things. 

As noisy once as we ; poor ghosts of kings. 

Shadows of empire wholly gone to dust, ^^^ 

And many races, nameless long ago, 

To darkness driven by that imperious gust 

Of ever-rushing Time that here doth blow : 



290 



295 



HAEVAED COMMEMOEATION ODE. 37 

O visionary world, condition strange, 

Where naught abiding is but only Change, ^^^ 

Where the deep-bolted stars themselves still shift and 
range ! 

Shall we to more continuance make pretence ? 
Renown builds tombs ; a life-estate is Wit ; 

And, bit by bit. 
The cunning years steal all from us but woe : 

Leaves are we, whose decays no harvest sow. 
But, when we vanish hence, 

Shall they lie forceless in the dark below. 

Save to make green their little length of sods. 

Or deepen pansies for a year or two, 

Who now to us are shining-sweet as gods ? 

Was dying all they had the skill to do ? 

That were not fruitless : but the Soul resents 

Such short-lived service, as if blind events 

Ruled without her, or earth could so endure; 

She claims a more divine investiture 

Of longer tenure than Fame's airy rents ; 

Whate'er she touches doth her nature share ; 

Her inspiration haunts the ennobled air. 
Gives eyes to mountains blind, 

Ears to the deaf earth, voices to the wind, ^^^ 

And her clear trump sings succor every^diere 

By lonely bivouacs to the wakeful mind ; 

For soul inherits all that soul could dare: 
Yea, Manhood hath a wider span 

And larger privilege of life than man. 

The single deed, the private sacrifice. 

So radiant now through proudly-hidden tears, 



300 



10 



38 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

Is covered up ere long from mortal eyes 
With thouglitless drift of tlie deciduous years ; 
But that high privilege that makes all men peers, ^^^ 
That leap of heart whereby a people rise 
Up to a noble anger's height, 
And, flamed on by the Fates, not shrink, but grow more 
bright. 
That swift validity in noble veins, 
Of choosing danger and disdaining shame, ^^^ 

Of being set on flame 
By the pure fire that flies all contact base. 
But wraps its chosen with angelic might, 
These are imperishable gains. 
Sure as the sun, medicinal as light, ^^^ 

These hold great futures in their lusty reins 
And certify to earth a new imperial race. 

X. 

Who now shall sneer ? 
Who dare again to say we trace 
Our lines to a plebeian race ? ^^^ 

Roundhead and Cavalier ! 
Dumb are those names erewhile in battle loud ; 
Dream-footed as the shadow of a cloud, 

They flit across the ear : 
That is best blood that hath most iron in 't. ^^^ 

To edge resolve with, pouring without stint 
For what makes manhood dear. 
Tell us not of Plantagenets, 
Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods crawl 
Down from some victor in a border-brawl! ^*^ 

How poor their outworn coronets, 



HARVAED COMMEMOEATION ODE. 39 

Matclied with one leaf of that plain civic wreath 
Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath, 

Through whose desert a rescued l^ation sets 
Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears ^*^ 

Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen ears 

With vain resentments and more vain regrets ! 

XI. 

]^ot in anger, not in pride. 

Pure from passion's mixture rude. 

Ever to base earth allied, ^^^ 

But with far-heard gratitude. 

Still with heart and voice renewed. 
To heroes living and dear martyrs dead, 
The strain should close that consecrates our brave. 

Lift the heart and lift the head ! ^^^ 

Lofty be its mood and grave, 

'Not without a martial ring, 

ISTot without a prouder tread 

And a peal of exultation: 

Little right has he to sing ^^^ 

Through whose heart in such an hour 

Beats no march of conscious power, 

Sweeps no tumult of elation! 

'Tis no Man we celebrate. 

By his country's victories great, ^^^ 

A hero half, and half the whim of Eate, 
But the pith and marrow of a ISTation 
Drawing force from all her men. 
Highest, humblest, weakest, all, 

Eor her time of need, and then ^^^ 

Pulsing it again through them, 



40 THE CKAIVJ-E CLASSICS. 

Till the basest can no longer cower, 
Feeling his soul spring np divinely tall, 
Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. 
Come back, then, noble pride, for 't is her dower ! ^^^ 

How could poet ever tower, 
If his passions, hopes, and fears. 
If his triumphs and his tears, 
Kept not measure with his people ? 
Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves 1 ^^^ 

Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple ! 
Banners, advance with triumph, bend your staves ! 
And from every mountain-peak 
Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak, 
Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he, ^^^ 

And so leap on in light from sea to sea, 
Till the glad news be sent 
Across a kindling continent. 
Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver : 
" Be proud ! for she is saved, and all have helped to save 
her! 390 

She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, 
She of the open soul and open door. 
With room about her hearth for all mankind ! 
The fire is dreadful in her eyes no more; 
From her bold front the helm she doth unbind, ^^^ 

Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin. 
And bids her navies, that so lately hurled 
Their crashing battle, hold their thunders in. 
Swimming like birds of calm along the unharmful shore. 
1^0 challenge sends she to the elder world, ^^^ 

That looked askance and hated; a light scorn 



HAEVAED COZvIMEMOEATIOK' ODE. 41 

Plays o'er her moutli, as round her mighty knees 
She calls her children back, and waits the morn 
Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas." 



405 



410 



415 



XII. 

Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release ! 
Thy God, in these distempered days, 
Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways, 
And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace ! 

Bow down in prayer and praise ! 
'No poorest in thy borders but may now 
Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow, 
O Beautiful ! my Country ! ours once more ! 
Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair 
O'er such sweet brows as never other wore. 

And letting thy set lips. 

Freed from wrath's pale eclipse. 
The rosy edges of their smile lay bare. 
What words divine of lover or of ]Doet 
Could tell our love and make thee know it, 
Among the Nations bright beyond compare ? 

What were our lives without thee ? 

What all our lives to save thee ? 

We reck not what we gave thee ; 

We will not dare to doubt thee. 
But ask whatever else, and we will dare I ^^^ 

^■OTES. 

2. Define " elear-ethered.'' 

5. Explain meaning. 

9. What are "' squadron-strophes '" ? 
13. Lethe, a river in Hades, whose waters, when drunk, caused 
forgetfulness of the past; oblivion. 

15. Reverend Mother — Alma Mater. Harvard University. 



420 



42 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

37. Veritas — truth. The emblem of Harvard University is a 
shield with "Veritas " upon three open books. 

38. Explain " unprolific sheath." 
42-65. Commit to memory. 

85. What are the " pasteboard passions and desires " ? 
94. Define " immunity." 
107. Explain "undegenerate years." 
117. Explain the line. 

123. Baal. The god of the Phoenicians, Assyrians, and other an- 
cient heathen nations. 

136. Explain the meaning. 

137-149. Commit to memory. 

Name some of the " stalwart men " of history. 

150. Abraham Lincoln. 

151. Antecedent of whom. 

152. Antecedent of her. 

175-177. Note the fineness of the figure. 

190. Plutarch was a writer of the early Christian Era, whose 
biographies combined the attributes of heroes and the attributes of 
men. He was master of his art. 

201-208. Commit to memory. 

242-244. Contrast the terms " paeans " and " dirge." 

253. See Numbers, chapter XIII. 

255, See Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard: 

" The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 

260. Explain " aureoled presence." 

280. Note the beauty of the line. 

289. How does Renown build tombs? 

301. Define "investiture." 

315. What figure in "deciduous years"? 

325. How is light medicinal? 

331. The Roundheads were the Puritans in England who fought 
against King Charles I. They wore their hair cropped short, while 
the Cavaliers, the king's supporters, wore long hair elaborately 
dressed. 

333. Note the beauty of the simile. 

338. Plantagenets. The second dynasty of English kings after the 
Norman conquest. They were Henry II., Richard I., John, Henry 
III., Edward I., II., III., Richard II. 



HAKVAED COMMEMORATION" ODE. 43 

339. Eapshurg, the house that succeeded the Stuart house on the 
English throne. 

Guelph, the surname of the present royal house of England. 

342, Explain " civic wreath," 

343, Explain " honor's blazon." 
360-363. Note the spirit of patriotism, 
376-379. Is this true of poets? 

385. New England mountain-peaks. 
391. Antecedent of "she"? 
396. What are " handmaid armies " ? 
404. What are " subject seas " ? 
408. Explain the meaning of the line. 



44 



THE CEAIs^E CLASSICS. 



THE FIRST SlSrOW-FALL. 

The snow had begun in the gloaming, 

And busily all the night 
Had been heaping field and highway 

With a silence deep and white. 

Every pine and fir and hemlock ^ 

Wore ermine too dear for an earl, 
x\nd the poorest twig on the elm-tree, 

Was ridged inch-deep with pearl. 

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara 

Came Chanticleer's muffled crow, ^^ 

The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down. 

And still fluttered down the snow. 

I stood and watched by the window 

The noiseless work of the sky. 
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds, ^^ 

Like brown leaves whirling by. 

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn 

Where a little headstone stood ; 
How the flakes were folding it gently, 

As did robins the babes in the wood. ^o 

Up spoke our own little Mabel, 

Saying, "Father, who makes it snow ?" 

And-T told her of the good All-father 
Who cares for us here below. 



THE FIRST SNOW-FALL. 45 



Again I looked at the snow-fall, 
And thonglit of the leaden sky 

That arched o'er our first great sorrow, 
When that mound was heaped so high. 

I rememhered the gradual patience 
That fell from that cloud like snow, 

Flake by flake, healing and hiding 
The scar of our deep-plunged woe. 

And again to the child I whispered, 
^' The snow that husheth all. 

Darling, the merciful Father 
Alone can make it fall ! " 

Then, with ^yes that saw not, I kissed her ; 

And she, kissing back, could not know 
That my kiss was given to her sister. 

Folded close under deepening snow. 



25 



30 



35 



40 



NOTES. 

Contrast the first three stanzas with Whittier's 8now-Bound, lines 
32-65. The volume containing this poem is dedicated " to the ever 
fresh and happy memory of our little Blanche." 

9. Carrara. A beautiful Italian marble, noted for its purity. 

15. Note the simile. 

29-30. Note the simile. 



46 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 



VILLA rKAITCA. 

[In 1859, Italy by the battles of Magenta and Solferino had hope 
of complete emancipation from Austrian rule. Napoleon III., who 
was in alliance with Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, had a 
conference with Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, at Villa 
Franca. The result of the conference was far from pleasing to Victor 
Emmanuel or promising for the unification of Italy. Napoleon was 
regarded as untrue to his trust, and the war continued, Mr. Lowell 
in the following poem gives his estimate of the French emperor.] 

Wait a little : do loe not wait ? 
Louis ISTapoleon is not Fate, 
Francis Joseph is not Time; 
There's One hath swifter feet than Crime ; 
Cannon-parliaments settle naught; ^ 

Venice is Austria's, — whose is Thought? 
Minie is good, but, spite of change, 
Gutenberg's gun has the longest range. 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 

In the shadow, year out, year in, 

The silent headsman waits forever. 

Wait, we say; our years are long; 
Men are weak, but Man is strong; 
Since the stars first curved their rings. 
We have looked on many things ; 
Great wars come and great wars go. 
Wolf -tracks light on polar snow ; 
We shall see him come and gone, 
This second-hand ^N^apoleon. 
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! 



10 



15 



20 



VILLA FRAINTCA. 



47 



Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
In the shadow, year out, year in, 
The silent headsman waits forever. 



25 



We saw the elder Corsican, 

And Clotho muttered as she span. 

While crowned lackeys bore the train, 

Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne: 

^^ Sister, stint not length of thread ! 

Sister, stay the scissors dread ! ^^ 

On Saint Helen's granite bleak. 

Hark, the vulture whets his beak ! " 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 

In the shadow, year out, year in, "^ 

The silent headsman waits forever. 

The Bonapartes, we know their bees 
That wade in honey red to the knees : 
Their patent reaper, its sheaves sleep sound 
In dreamless garners underground: ^^ 

We know false glory's spendthrift race 
Pawning nations for feathers and lace ; 
It may be short, it may be long, 
" 'T is reckoning-day ! " sneers unpaid Wrong. 
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! *^ 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
In the shadow, year out, year in, 
The silent headsman waits forever. 

The Cock that wears the Eagle's skin 

Can promise what he ne'er could win; ^^ 



48 • THE CEAI^E CLASSICS. 

Slavery reaped for fine words sown, 

System for all, and rights for none, 

Despots atop, a wild clan below. 

Such is the Gaul from long ago ; 

Wash the black from the Ethiop's face, ^^ 

Wash the past out of man or race ! 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! 

Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! 

In the shadow, year out, year in. 

The silent headsman waits forever. ^^ 

'ISTeath Gregory's throne a spider swings. 

And snares the people for the kings; 

"Luther is dead; old quarrels pass; 

The stake's black scars are healed with grass ;" 

So dreamers prate ; did man e'er live ^^ 

Saw priest or woman yet forgive; 

But Luther's broom is left, and eyes 

Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies. 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! ^ '^^ 

In the shadow, year out, year in. 

The silent headsman waits forever. 

Smooth sails the ship of either realm, 

Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm; 

We look down the depths, and mark '^^ 

Silent workers in the dark 

Building slow the sharp-tusked reefs, 

Old instincts hardening to new beliefs; 

Patience a little; learn to wait; 

Hours are long on the clock of Fate. *^ 



VILLA FEANCA. 49 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! 
Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
Darkness is strong, and so is Sin, 
But only God endures forever ! 

NOTES. 

5. What are "cannon" parliaments? 

7. Minie, a rifle invented by Claude Etienne Minie; was adopted 
by the French government in 1849. It was superior in the preci- 
sion and range it gave to the bullet over all other firearms of that 
time. 

8. Gutenberg's gun. The printing-press. Another way of say- 
ing, " The pen is mightier than the sword." 

9. Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos were the three Fates of early 
mythology. Clotho spun the thread of human destiny; Lachesis 
twisted it, and Atropos severed it. They have furnished a subject 
for many masterpieces of art. Clotho and Lachesis are sometimes 
represented as young maidens, while Atropos appears as an old 
woman. She carries the shears, while Clotho holds the distaff. 

17. See Commemoration Ode, lines 201-208. Also, Kipling's Re- 
cessional : 

" Far-culled our navies melt away — ^ 
On dune and headland sinks the fire — 
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday 
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!" 
25. The elder Gorsican, Napoleon Bonaparte. 
28. Pinchheek, cheap imitation jewelry. 

Gharlemagne, Charles the Great, master of all western Europe in 
the eighth century. 

37. The bee was the emblem of the Bonaparte family. 
54. Gaul, the early Celtic race in France. 

61. Pope Gregory VII., in the eleventh century humbled the 
kings and brought papacy to its supreme power. 



4— 



50 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 



THE ITIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. 



" Come forth ! " mj catbird calls to me, 

"And hear me sing a cavatina 
That, in this old familiar tree, 

Shall hang a garden of Alcina. 

" These buttercups shall brim with wine 
Beyond all Lesbian juice or Massic; 

May not ISTew England be divine ? 
My ode to ripening summer classic ? 

" Or, if to me you will not hark. 
By Beaver Brook a thrush is ringing 

Till all the alder-coverts dark 

Seem sunshine-dappled with his singing. 

" Come out beneath the unmastered sky. 

With its emancipating spaces. 
And learn to sing as well as I, 

Without premeditated graces. 

'' What boot your many-volumed gains, 
Those withered leaves forever turning, 

To win, at best, for all your pains, 
A nature mummy-wrapt in learning? 

" The leaves wherein true wisdom lies 
On living trees the sun are drinking; 

Those white clouds, drawing through the skies. 
Grew not so beautiful by thinking. 



THE N^IGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. 

" Come out ! with me tlie oriole cries, 
Escape the demon that pursues you ! 

And, hark, the cuckoo weatherwise, 

Still hiding, farther onward wooes you." 

''Alas, dear friend, that, all my days. 
Has poured from thy syringa thicket 

The quaintly discontinuous lays 

To which I hold a season-ticket, — 

"A season-ticket cheaply bought 
With a dessert of pilfered berries. 

And who so oft my soul has caught 
With morn and evening voluntaries, — 

" Deem me not faithless, if all day 
Among my dusty books I linger, 

'So pipe, like thee, for June to play 
With fancy-led, half-conscious finger. 

''A bird is singing in my brain 

And bubbling o'er with mingled fancies. 
Gay, tragic, rapt, right heart of Spain 

Fed Avith the sap of old romances. 

" I ask no ampler skies than those 
His magic music rears above me, 

So falser friends, no truer foes, — 
And does not Doiia Clara love me ? 

" Cloaked shapes, a twanging of guitars, 
A rush of feet, and rapiers clashing. 



51 



25 



30 



35 



40 



45 



50 



52 , THE CEAKE CLASSICS. 

Then silence deep with breathless stars, 
And overhead a white hand flashing. 

" O music of all moods and climes, 
Vengeful, forgiving, sensuous, saintly, 

Where still, between the Christian chimes, ^^ 

The Moorish cymbal tinkles faintly! 

^^ O life borne lightly in the hand. 

For friend or foe with grace Castilian ! 

O valley safe in Fancy's land, 

!N^ot tramped to mud yet by the million ! ^^ 

" Bird of to-day, thy songs are stale 
To his, my singer of all weathers, 

My Calderon, my nightingale. 

My Arab soul in Spanish feathers. 

^'Ah, friend, these singers dead so long, ^^ 

And still, God knows, in purgatory. 

Give its best sweetness to all song, 
To Nature's self her better glory." 



THE PEESENT CRISIS. 53 



THE PEESENT CRISIS. 

[The following poem was written in 1844, when the annexation of 
Texas was pending. It had become a party issue in the presidential 
campaign. The pro-slavery party favored it as a means of increasing 
slave territory, and the anti-slavery party opposed it for the same 
reason. It is one of the finest poems in American literature.] 

When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad 

earth's aching breast 
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to 

west, 
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within 

him climb 
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime 
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of 

Time. ^ 

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instan- 
taneous throe, 

When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to 
and fro; 

At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start, 

l^ation wildly looks at nation, standing with mu,te lips 
apart. 

And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath 
the Future's heart. ^^ 

So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill, 
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill. 
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies 
with God 



54 THE CRAKE CLASSICS. 

In hot tear-drops ebbing eartliwardj to be drnnk np by 

tlie sod, 
Till a corpse crawls ronnd unbnried, delving in the nobler 

clod. 1^ 

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, 
Round tbe earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or 

wrong ; 
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast 

frame 
Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or 

shame ; — 
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal 

claim. ^^ 

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil 

side ; 
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the 

bloom or blight. 
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon 

the right. 
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and 

that light. ^^ 

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt 

stand. 
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against 

our land ? 
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 't is Truth alone is 

strong, 



THE PEESEN'T CBISIS. 00 

And, albeit she wander onteast now^ I see around her 

throng 
Troops of beantifulj lall angels^ to enshield her from all 

wrong. ^^ 

Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see, 
That, like peaks of some sunk continent^ jnt throngh Ob- 
livion's sea; 
Xot an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry 
Of those Crises, Grod's stem winnowers, from whose feet 

earth's chaff mnst flv: 
Xever shows the choice momentous till the jndgment hath 
passed bv. so 

Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages bnt re- 
cord 

One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and 
the Word ; 

Tnith forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the 

throne, — 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim 

nnknown, 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his 

own. *'^ 

We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is 

great, 
Slow of faith how weak an arm may torn the iron helm of 

fate, 
Bnt the sonl is still oracnlar ; amid the market's din, 



56 THE CRAITE CLASSICS. 

List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave 
within, — 

" They enslave their children's children who make com- 
promise with sin." *^ 

Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood, 
Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched 

the earth with blood, 
Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day. 
Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey; — 
Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children 

play? 50 

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her 

wretched crust. 
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous 

to be just; 
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands 

aside. 
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified. 
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had 

denied. ^^ 

Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, — they were souls that 

stood alone. 
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious 

stone. 
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam 

incline 



THE PKESEISTT CRISIS. 



57 



To the side of perfect justice, mastered by tlieir faith 

divine, 
By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme 

design. ^^ 

By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I 

track, 
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not 

back. 
And these mounts of anguish number how each generation 

learned 
One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts 

hath burned 
Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to 

heaven upturned. ^^ 

For humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr 

stands, 
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands ; 
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots 

burn. 
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return 
To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn. 

'T is as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves ''^ 

Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves. 
Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a 

crime ; — 
Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men 

behind their time ? 
Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Ply- 
mouth Rock sublime ? '^^ 



58 THE CRAWE CLASSICS. 

They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts, 
Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past's ; 
But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath 

made us free, 
Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits 

flee 
The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them 

across the sea. ^^ 

They have rights who dare maintain them ; we are traitors 
to our sires. 

Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar- 
fires ; 

Shall we make their creed our jailer ? Shall we, in our 
haste to slay, 

From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps 
away 

To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to- 
day? 85 

'New occasions teach new duties ; Time makes ancient good 
uncouth ; 

They must upward still, and onward, who would 'keep 
abreast of Truth ; 

Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must 
Pilgrims be, 

Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the des- 
perate winter sea, 

Not attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood- 
rusted key. ^^ 



THE PKESEITT CRISIS. 59 

NOTES. 

17. Morse's telegraph had been first operated a short time before 
this poem was written. 

26-30. Commit to memory. 

46. Look up the story of Cyclops. 

57. Define " contumelious." 

64. Credo, " I believe." The creed or belief of the church. In 
the Latin it begins with the word Credo. 

74. Reference to the Mayflower was especially pertinent, since 
Lowell Avas a New England man. 

76. Iconoclasts, idol-breakers. 

84-85. Explain the figure. 



60 . . THE CRAN'E CLASSICS. 



THE BIGLOW PAPEKS. 

[The Biglow Papers were a series of satirical poems, written in 
Yankee dialect and published in a Boston newspaper. They were 
assumed to be written by Hosea Biglow and edited by the Reverend 
Homer Wilbur. They were political in purpose, and their keen wit 
and satire made them powerful weapons against the Southern party 
during the time of the Mexican War. 

When the Civil War broke out, Mr. Lowell wrote a second series 
of "Biglow Papers,'' for the Atlantic Monthly. They were as 
powerful as the first series had been. The following poem was writ- 
ten just before the close of the war.] 

Dear Sir^ — Your letter come to lian' 

Pequestin' me to please be funny ; 
But I ain't made upon a plan 

Thet knows wut's comin', gall or honey: 
Ther' 's times the world doos look so queer, ^ 

Odd fancies come afore I call 'em; 
An' then agin, for half a year, 

1^0 preacher 'thout a call 's more solemn. 



10 



You 're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, 

Battlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jinglish, 
An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit, 

I'd take an' citify my English. 
I hen write long-tailed, ef I please, — 

But when I'm jokin', no, I thankee; 
Then, 'fore I know it, my idees ^^ 

Run helter-skelter into Yankee. 

Sence I begun to scribble rhyme, 
I tell ye wut, I hain't ben foolin' ; 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 61 



20 



25 



30 



The parson's books, life, death, an' time 
Hev took some trouble with my schoolin' ; 

^or th' airth don't git put out with me, 
Thet love her 'z though she wnz a woman ; 

Why, th' ain't a bird upon the tree 
But half forgives my bein' human. 

An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way 

01' farmers hed when I wuz younger ; 
Their, talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay, 

While book-froth seems to whet your hunger; 
For puttin' in a do^vnright lick 

'Twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can metch it. 
An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick 

Ez stret-grained hickry doos a hatchet. 



But when I can't, I can't, thet's all, 

For N^atur' won't put up with gullin' ; 
I dees you hev to shove an' haul 

Like a druv pig ain't wuth a mullein : 
Live thoughts ain't sent for ; thru all rifts 

O' sense they pour an' resh ye onwards. 
Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts 

Feel thet th' old airth 's a-wheelin' sunwards. ^^ 

Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin' thick 

Ez office-seekers arter 'lection, 
An' into ary place 'ould stick 

Without no bother nor objection ; 
But sence the war my thoughts hang back *^ 

Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em, 



85 



50 



62 THE CEAlSrE CLASSICS. 

An' subs'tutes — tJiey don't never lack, 

But then thej '11 slope afore jou 've mist 'em. 

!N^otliin' don't seem like wut it wnz; 

I can't see wut there is to liender, 
An' yit my brains jes' go buzz, buzz, 

Like bumblebees agin a winder ; 
Tore these times come, in all airth's row, 

Ther' wuz one quiet place, my head in, 
Where I could hide an' think, — but now ^^ 

It's all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'. 

Where's Peace ? I start, some clear-blown night, 

When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number. 
An', creakin' 'cross the snow-crus' white, 

Walk the col' starlight into summer; 
Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell 

Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer 
Than the last smile thet strives to tell 

O' love gone heavenward in its shimmer. 



60 



I hev ben gladder o' sech things 

Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover. 
They filled my heart with livin' springs. 

But now they seem to freeze em' over; 
Sights innercent ez babes on knee. 

Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle, 
Jes' coz they be so, seem to me 

To rile me more with thoughts o' battle. 

In-doors an' out by spells I try ; 

Ma'am IsTatur' keeps her spin- wheel goin'. 



65 



70 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 63 



75 



But leaves my natur' stiff and dr j 

Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin' ; 
An' her jes' kepin' on tlie same, 

Calmer n' a clock, an' never car in', 
An' findin' nary thing to blame, 

Is wns than ef she took to swearin'. ^^ 



Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane. 

The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant, 
But I can't hark to wut they're say'n'. 

With Grant or Sherman oilers present; 
The chimbleys shudder in the gale, 

Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin' 
Like a shot hawk, but all 's ez stale 

To me ez so much sperit-rappin'. 



Under the yaller-pines I house. 

When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented. 
An' hear among their furry boughs 

The baskin' west-wind pour contented. 
While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low 

Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', 
The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow. 

Further an' further South retreatin'. 

Or up the slippery knob I strain 
An' see a hundred hills like islan's 

Lift their blue woods in broken chain 
Out o' the sea o' snowy silence; 

The farm-smokes, sweetes' sight on airth^ 
Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin' 



85 



90 



95 



100 



64 



THE CEANE CLASSICS. 



Seem kin^ o' sad, an' roW the hearth 
Of empty places set me thinkin'. 

Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows, ^^^ 

An' rattles di'mon's from his granite; 
Time wuz, he snatched away my prose, 

An' into psalms or satires ran it; 
But he, nor all the rest thet once 

Started my blood to country-dances, ^^^ 

Can't set me goin' more'n a dunce 

Thet hain't no use for dreams an' fancies. 

Eat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street 

I hear the drummers makin' riot, 
An' I set thinkin' o' the feet n^ 

Thet f oUered once an' now are quiet, — 
White feet ez snowdrops innercent, 

Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, 
Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't, 

]^o, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'. ^20 

Why, hain't I held 'em on my knee ? 

Didn't I love to see 'em growin'. 
Three likely lads ez wal could be, 

Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu knowin' ? 
I set an' look into the blaze ^^s 

Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps climbin', 
Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways, 

An' half despise myself for rhymin'. 

Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth 

On War's red techstone rang true metal, ^^^ 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

Who ventered life an' love an' youth 
For the gret prize o' death in battle ? 

To him who, deadly hurt, agen 

Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, 

Tippin' with fire the bolt of men 
Thet rived the Rebel line asunder ? 

'T ain't right to hev the young go fust, 

All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces, 
Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust 

To try an' make b'lieve fill their places : 
Nothin' but tells us wut we miss, 

Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay in. 
An' thet world seems so fur from this 

Lef for us loafers to grow gray in! 

My eyes cloud up for rain ; my mouth 

Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners; 
I pity mothers, tu, down South, 

For all they sot among the scorners : 
I'd sooner take my chance to stan' 

At Jedgment where your meanest slave is. 
Than at God's bar hoi' up a han' 

Ez drippin' red ez yourn, Jeff Davis ! 

Come, Peace ! not like a mourner bowed 
For honor lost an' dear ones wasted. 

But proud, to meet a people proud, 
With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted ! 

Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt. 

An' step thet proves ye Victory's daughter 
—5 



65 



135 



140 



145 



150 



155 



66 THE CEAKE CLASSICS. 

Longin' for you, our sperits wilt 

Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water. 



160 



Come, while our country feels the lift 

Of a gret instinct shoutin' forwards, 
An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift 

Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards ! 
Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when ^^^ 

They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered, 
An' bring fair wages for brave jnen, 

A nation saved, a race delivered ! 

NOTES. 

93. Note tlie figure. 

95. Wedged wiV geese. Explain the force of the adjective wedged. 

97. Compare with Longfellow's " Golden Milestone." 

105. Beaver Brook flows into the Charles. 

145. A quaint figure. 



PEOMETHEtJS. 67 



PEOMETHEUS. 

[According to Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from the 
altar of Zeus and gave it as a gift to man. For this offense he 
was bound upon a lonely rock on Mount Caucasus, and it was de- 
creed that a vulture should prey upon his liver daily, and what 
was destroyed in the daytime was renewed at night. The struggle of 
humanity against fear and superstition, and the whole realm of 
untrained imagination, is typified by the poem. Longfellow, Shelley, 
Goethe and Mrs. Browning have all made this myth subject for 
poetic production.] 

On"e after one the stars have risen and set, 
Sparkling upon the hoarfrost on mj chain : 
The Bear, that prowled all night about the fold 
Of the !N"orth-Star, hath shrunk into his den, 
Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the Dawn, ^ 

Whose blushing smile floods all the Orient; 
And now bright Lucifer grows less and less, 
Into the heaven's blue quiet deep-withdrawn. 
Sunless and starless all, the desert sky 
Arches above me, empty as this heart 
For ages hath been empty of all joy, 
Except to brood upon its silent hope. 
As o'er its hope of day the sky doth now. 
All night have I heard voices: deeper yet 
The deep low breathing of the silence grew, 
While all about, muffled in awe, there stood 
Shadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at heart. 
But, when I turned to front them, far along 
Only a shudder through the midnight ran, 
And the dense stillness walled me closer round. 
But still I heard them wander up and down 



10 



15 



20 



68 



THE CEANE CLASSICS. 



That solitude, and flappings of dusk wings 

Did mingle with them, whether of those hags 

Let slip upon me once from Hades deep, 

Or of yet direr torments, if such be, ^^ 

I could but guess; and then toward me came 

A shape as of a woman: very pale 

It was, and calm ; its cold eyes did not move. 

And mine moved not, but only stared on them. 

Their fixed awe went through my brain like ice ; ^^ 

A skeleton hand seemed clutching at my heart. 

And a sharp chill, as if a dank night fog 

Suddenly closed me in, was all I felt: 

And then, methought, I heard a freezing sigh, 

A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue lips ^^ 

Stiffening in death, close to mine ear. I thought 

Some doom was close upon me, and I looked 

And saw the red moon through the heavy mist. 

Just setting, and it seemed as it were falling. 

Or reeling to its fall, so dim and dead ^^ 

And palsy-struck it looked. Then all sounds merged 

Into the rising surges of the pines. 

Which, leagues below me, clothing the gaunt loins 

Of ancient Caucasus with hairy strength. 

Sent up a murmur in the morning wind, 

Sad as the wail that from the populous earth 

All day and night to high Olympus soars. 

Fit incense to thy wicked throne, O Jove ! 



45 



Thy hated name is tossed once more in scorn 
From off my lips, for I will tell thy doom. 
And are these tears ? Nay, do not triumph, Jove ! 



50 



60 



65 



PEOMETHEUS. 69 

They are wrung from me but by the agonies 

Of prophecy, like those sparse drops which fall 

From clouds in travel of the lightning, when 

The great wave of the storm high-curled and black ^^ 

Rolls steadily onward to its thunderous break. 

Why art thou made a god of, thou poor type 

Of anger, and revenge, and cunning force ? 

True Power was never born of brutish strength, 

Nor sweet Truth suckled at the shaggy dugs 

Of that old she-wolf. Are thy thunder-bolts, 

That quell the darkness for a space, so strong 

As the prevailing patience of meek Light, 

^'\nio, with the invincible tenderness of peace, 

Wins it to be a portion of herself ? 

Why art thou made a god of, thou, who hast 

The never-sleeping terror at thy heart. 

That birthright of all tyrants, worse to bear 

Than this thy ravening bird on which I smile ? 

Thou swear'st to free me, if I will unfold ^^ 

What kind of doom it is whose omen flits 

Across thy heart, as o'er a troop of doves 

The fearful shadow of the kite. What need 

To know that truth whose knowledge cannot save ? 

Evil its errand hath, as well as God ; 

When thine is finished, thou art known no more : 

There is a higher purity than thou. 

And higher purity is greater strength ; 

Thy nature is thy doom, at which thy heart 

Trembles behind the thick wall of thy might. 

Let man but hope, and thou art straightway chilled 

With thought of that drear silence and deep night 



75 



80 



70 THE CRAI^E CLASSICS. 

Which, like a dream, shall swallow thee and thine : 

Let man but will, and thou art god no more, 

More capable of ruin than the gold ^^ 

And ivory that image thee on earth. 

He who hurled down the monstrous Titan-brood 

Blinded with lightnings, with rough thunder stunned, 

Is weaker than a simple human thought. 

My slender voice can shake thee, as the breeze, 

That seems but apt to stir a maiden's hair, 

Sways huge Oceanus from pole to pole; 

For I am still Prometheus, and foreknow 

In my wise heart the end and doom of all. 



90 



95 



100 



Yes, I am still Prometheus, wiser grown 
By years of solitude, — that holds apart 
The past and future, giving the soul room 
To search into itself, — and long commune 
With this eternal silence ; — more a god, 
In my long-suffering and strength to meet 
With equal front the direst shafts of fate, 
Than thou in thy faint-hearted despotism, 
Girt with thy baby-toys of force and wrath. 
Yes, I am that Prometheus who brought down 
The light to man, which thou, in selfish fear, 
Hadst to thyself usurped, — his by sole right, 
For man hath right to all save Tyranny, — 
And which shall free him yet from thy frail throne. 
Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance, 
Begotten by the slaves they trample on, ^^^ 

Who, could they win a glimmer of the light, 
And see that Tyranny is always weakness, 



105 



PEOMETHEUS. 71 

Or Fear with its own bosom ill at ease. 



^? 



Would laugh away in scorn the sand-wove chain 

T^Tiich their own blindness feigned for adamant. ^'^'^ 

Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the Right 

To the firm centre lays its moveless base. 

The tyrant trembles, if the air but stirs 

The innocent ringlets of a child's free hair, 

And crouches, when the thought of some great spirit, ^^'^ 

With world-wide murmur, like a rising gale, 

Over men's hearts, as over standing corn, 

Hushes, and bends them to its own strong will. 

So shall some thought of mine yet circle earth. 

And puff away thy crumbling altars, Jove ! ^^'^ 

And, wouldst thou know of my supreme revenge. 
Poor tyrant, even now dethroned in heart, 
Realmless in soul, as tyrants ever are. 
Listen! and tell me if this bitter peak. 
This never-glutted vulture, and these chains ^"*^ 

Shrink not before it ; for it shall befit 
A sorrow-taught, unconquered Titan-heart. 
Men, when their death is on them, seem to stand 
On a precipitous crag that overhangs 
The abyss of doom, and in that depth to see. 
As in a ^lass, the features dim and vast 
Of things to come, the shadows, as it seems. 
Of what had been. Death ever fronts the wise ; 
'Not fearfully, but with clear promises 
Of larger life, on whose broad vans upborne, 
Their outlook widens, and they see beyond 
The horizon of the present and the past. 



135 



140 



72 THE CRAITE CLASSICS. 

Even to the very source and end of things. 

Such am I now: immortal woe hath made 

My heart a seer, and my soul a judge ^*^ 

Between the substance and the shadow of Truth. 

The sure supremeness of the Beautiful, 

By all the martyrdoms made dou'bly sure 

Of such as I am, this is my revenge, 

Which of my wrongs builds a triumphal arch, ^^^ 

Through which I see a sceptre and a throne. 

The pipings of glad shepherds on the hills. 

Tending the flocks no more to bleed for thee, — 

The songs of maidens pressing with white feet 

The vintage on thine altars poured no more, — ^^^ 

The murmurous bliss of lovers, underneath 

Dim grapevine bowers, whose rosy bunches press 

]N^ot half so closely their warm cheeks, unpaled 

By thoughts of thy brute lust, — the hive-like hum 

Of peaceful commonwealths, where sunburnt Toil 

Reaps for itself the rich earth made its own 

By its own labor, lightened with glad hymns 

To an omnipotence which thy mad bolts 

Would cope with as a spark with the vast sea, — 

Even the spirit of free love and peace, 

Duty's sure recompense through life and death, — 

These are such harvests as all master-spirits 

Beap, haply not on earth, but reap no less 

Because the sheaves are bound by hands not theirs ; 

These are the bloodless daggers wherewithal ^^^ 

They stab fallen tyrants, this their high revenge: 

Eor their best part of life on earth is when, 

Long after death, prisoned and pent no more, 



160 



165 



PROMETHEUS. 



73 



Their thoughts^ their wild dreams even, have become 

Part of the necessary air men breathe: ^^^ 

When, like the moon, herself behind a cloud. 

They shed down light before us on life's sea. 

That cheers us to steer onward still in hope. 

Earth with her twining memories ivies o'er 

Their holy sepulchres ; the chainless sea, ^^^ 

In tempest or wide calm, repeats their thoughts ; 

The lightning and the thunder, all free things. 

Have legends of them for the ears of men. 

All other glories are as falling stars, 

But universal I^ature watches theirs: ^^^ 

Such strength is won by love of human-kind. 



!N^ot that I feel that hunger after fame, 
Which souls of a half-greatness are beset with; 
But that the memory of noble deeds 
Cries shame upon the idle and the vile, 
And keeps the heart of Man forever up 
To the heroic level of old time. 
To be forgot at first is little pain 
To a heart conscious of such high intent 
As must be deathless on the lips of men ; 
But, having been a name, to sink and be 
A something which the world can do without. 
Which, having been or not, would never change 
The lightest pulse of fate, — this is indeed 
A cup of bitterness the worst to taste. 
And this thy heart shall empty to the dregs. 
Endless despair shall be thy Caucasus, 
And memory thy vulture ; thou wilt find 



190 



195 



200 



71 



THE CEATsTE CLASSICS. 



Oblivion far lonelier than this peak, — 

Behold thy destiny! Thou think'st it much 205 

That I should brave thee, miserable god ! 

But I have braved a mightier than thou. 

Even the tempting of this soaring heart, 

Which might have made me, scarcely less than thou, 

A god among my brethren weak and blind, — ^^^ 

Scarce less than thou, a pitiable thing 

To be down-trodden into darkness soon. 

But now I am above thee, for thou art 

The bungling workmanship of fear, the block 

That awes the swart Barbarian; but I ^^^ 

Am what myself have made, — a nature wise 

With finding in itself the types of all, — 

With watching from the dim verge of the time 

What things to be are visible in the gleams 

Thrown forward on them from the luminous past, — ^^^ 

Wise with the history of its own frail heart. 

With reverence and with sorrow, and with love, 

Broad as the world, for freedom and for man. 

Thou and all strength shall crumble, except Love, 
By whom, and for whose glory, ye shall cease : ^^^ 

And, when thou art but a dim moaning heard 
Prom out the pitiless gloom of Chaos, I 
Shall be a power and a memory, 
A name to fright all tyrants with, a light 
Unsetting as the pole-star, a great voice 230 

Heard in the breathless pauses of the fight 
By truth and freedom ever waged with wrong. 
Clear as a silver trumpet, to awake 
Huge echoes that from age to age live on 



PROMETHEUS. 75 

In kindred spirits, giving them a sense ^^^ 

Of boundless power from boundless suffering wrung: 

And many a glazing eye shall smile to see 

The memory of my triumph (for to meet 

Wrong with endurance, and to overcome 

The present with a heart that looks beyond, ^*° 

Are triumph), like a prophet eagle, perch 

Upon the sacred banner of the Right. 

Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, 

And feeds the green earth with its swift decay. 

Leaving it richer for the growth of truth; ^*^ 

But Good, once put in action or in thought, 

Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs shed doT\Ti 

The ripe germs of a forest. Thou, weak god, 

Shalt fade and be forgotten ! but this soul, 

Fresh-living still in the serene abyss, ^^^ 

In every heaving shall partake, that grows 

From heart to heart among the sons of men, — 

As the ominous hum before the earthquake runs 

Far through the ^gean from roused isle to isle, — 

Foreboding wreck to palaces and shrines, ^^^ 

And mighty rents in many a cavernous error 

That darkens the free light to man : — This heart, 

Unscarred by thy grim vulture, as the truth 

Grows but more lovely 'neath the beaks and claws 

Of Harpies blind that fain would soil it, shall ^go 

In all the throbbing exultations share 

That wait on freedom's triumphs, and in all 

The glorious agonies of martyr-spirits, — 

Sharp lightning-throes to split the jagged clouds 

That veil the future, showing them the end, — ^es 



76 



THE CRA]M"E CLASSICS. 



275 



280 



Pain's thorny crown for constancy and truth, 
Girding the temples like a wreath of stars. 
This is a thought, that, like the fabled laurel, 
Makes my faith thunder-proof; and thy dread bolts 
Fall on me like the silent flakes of snow ^"^^ 

On the hoar brows of aged Caucasus : 
But, O thought far more blissful, they can rend 
This cloud of flesh, and make my soul a star ! 

Unleash thy crouching thunders now, O Jove ! 
Free this high heart, which, a poor captive long. 
Doth knock to be let forth, this heart which still. 
In its invincible manhood, overtops 
Thy puny godship, as this mountain doth 
The pines that moss its roots. Oh, even now, 
While from my peak of suffering I look down. 
Beholding with a far-spread gush of hope 
The sunrise of that Beauty, in whose face. 
Shone all around with love, no man shall look 
But straightway like a god he is uplift 
Unto the throne long empty for his sake, ^^^ 

And clearly oft foreshadowed in wide dreams 
By his free inward nature, which nor thou, 
N^or any anarch after thee, can bind 
Erom working its great doom, — now, now set free 
This essence, not to die, but to become ^oo 

Part of that awful Presence which doth haunt 
The palaces of tyrants, to hunt off, 
With its grim eyes and fearful whisperings 
And hideous sense of utter loneliness. 
All hope of safety, all desire of peace, 295 

All but the loathed f oref eeling of blank death, — 



PEOMETHEUS. 77 

Part of that spirit whicli dotli ever brood 

In patient calm on the nnpilfered nest 

Of man's deep heart, till mighty thoughts grow fledged 

To sail with darkening shadow o'er the world, ^^^ 

Filling with dread such souls as dare not trust 

In the unfailing energy of Good, 

Until they swoop, and their pale quarry make 

Of some o'erbloated wrong, — that spirit which 

Scatters great hopes in the seed-field of man, ^^^ 

Like acorns among grain, to grow and be 

A roof for freedom in all coming time ! 

But no, this cannot be ; for ages yet. 

In solitude unbroken, shall I hear 

The angry Caspian to the Euxine shout, ^^^ 

And Euxine answer with a muffled roar. 

On either side storming the giant walls 

Of Caucasus with leagues of climbing foam 

(Less, from my height, than flakes of downy snow). 

That draw back baffled but to hurl again, ^^^ 

Snatched up in wrath and horrible turmoil. 

Mountain on mountain, as the Titans erst. 

My brethren, scaling the high seat of Jove, 

Heaved Pelion upon Ossa's shoulders broad 

In vain emprise. The moon will come and go ^^^ 

With her monotonous vicissitude; 

Once beautiful, when I was free to walk 

Among my fellows, and to interchange 

The influence benign of loving eyes. 

But now by aged use grown wearisome ; — ^^^ 

False thought ! most false ! for how could I endure 

These crawling centuries of lonely woe 



,.0f 



78 ■ THE CKANE CLASSICS. 

Unslianied by weak complaining, but for tbee, 
Loneliest, save me, of all created things, 
Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter, ^^^ 

With thy pale smile of sad benigTiity ? 

Year after year will pass away and seem 
To me, in mine eternal agony. 
But as the shadows of dumb summer clouds. 
Which I have watched so often darkening o'er ^^^ 

The vast Sarmatian plain, league-wide at first. 
But, with still swiftness, lessening on and on 
Till cloud and shadow meet and mingle where 
The gray horizon fades into the sky. 
Far, far to northward. Yes, for ages yet ^^^ 

Must I lie here upon my altar huge, 
A sacrifice for man. Sorrow will be. 
As it hath been, his portion ; endless doom, 
Wliile the immortal with the mortal linked 
Dreams of its wings and pines for what it dreams, ^^^ 
With upward yearn unceasing. Better so: 
For wisdom is meek sorrow's patient child. 
And empire over self, and all the deep 
Strong charities that make men seem like gods; 
And love, that makes them be gods, from her breasts ^^^ 
Sucks in the milk that makes mankind one blood. 
Good never comes unmixed, or so it seems. 
Having two faces, as some images 
Are carved, of foolish gods; one face is ill; 
But one heart lies beneath, and that is good, ^^^ 

As are all hearts, when we explore their depths. 
Therefore, great heart, bear up ! thou art but type 
Of what all lofty spirits endure, that fain 



PEOMETHEUS. 



79 



Would win men back to strength and peace through love : 
Each hath his lonely peak, and on each heart ^^^ 

Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelong 
With vulture beak; yet the high soul is left; 
And faith, which is but hope grown wise ; and love 
And patience, which at last shall overcome. 

NOTES. 

1-6. Study the figure carefully. 
14-20. A beautiful expression. 
49. Jove, Jupiter. Same as the Greek Zeus. 
75. Explain the meaning, 
79. How can one's nature be his doom? 
84. Explain the meaning. 

108. Antecedent of which. 

109. See Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: 

" He were no lion, were not Romans hinds." 

115. Define " adamant." 

116. See Matthew, vii: 24-27. 
147-178. Commit to memory. 

188. What lines of the Commemoration Ode are suggested by this 
line? 

193-201. Note the strong contrast between greatness and little- 
ness. 

202. A strong metaphor. 

224. Is this a truth? 

238-241. Commit parenthesis. 

243-248. " Evil is only the slave of good, 

Sorrow the servant of joy." — Holland. 

" The first of all gospels is that a lie cannot endure." — Carlyle. 

235. Why "palaces" and "shrines"? 

260. Harpies, foul creatures of Greek mythology that with beak 
and claw tore and befouled all they touched. 

269-271. Fine simile. 

279-307. Should this sentence be shortened into two or more 
sentences ? 

310. Euoeine, Black sea. 

330. Astarte, symbol of Nature. 

360-364. The summing-up of the teachings of the poem is in these 
lines. 



;T 24 1904 



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